Tomorrow is the final day of the Olympics, and there are at least two things to keep your eye on.  At 15.40 on Sunday, Beijing time, Hungary will play the United States for the gold medal in waterpolo.  Hungary has won 8 gold medals in the sport since 1932.

The other thing to watch is the men’s marathon at 07.30 Beijing time (01:30 Budapest time / 19.30 Saturday Virginia time).  I’ve been waiting for this for the the last two weeks (though I’ll have to just catch the highlights on youtube).  Ryan Hall is the USA hope for gold.  Though Ryan has only competed in 3 official marathons, he holds the fastest olympic qualifying time for an American.  If I remember correctly, in London recently, he ran the marathon in 2:06:17.  Whoa.  That is not far off of the world record.  But there are three Kenyons who are running the same speed right now, so Ryan will be up against the fastest group in history.

But Ryan is running for more than a gold medal.  Ryan will be running in the memory of one of his best friends, Ryan Shay, who collapsed and died at the fifth mile of the olympic trials.  Ryan also talks a lot about letting go of all of the lofty goals of running a faster time or winning first place.  He talks a lot about the joy of simply running for God.  This is what he calls being “free to run.”  You can see his training video here.

Here are four of my favorite pictures from our program in Slovenia. My brother Daniel took the first and third. The first two were taken during a 7.5 hour hike to Krn Mountain.

Last week, 20 of us went to Kobarid, Slovenia to see a beautiful part of Central Europe, to have some adventure, and to enjoy some meaningful time and conversation with each other.  Our friends Stephan and Thea live in Vrsno, a small town above Kobarid and the Soca River.  Stephan and Thea showed us amazing places and enabled us to have some great adventures.

A quick overview of the week: 3 hour waterfall-hunting hike, rafting down the Soca river, cleaning/gutting and roasting fish over a fire, 7.5 hour hike to Krn mountain, jumping off of a 15 meter high bridge, a day of kayaking, searching for the Kozjak waterfall canyon at night, a half-day at Grado beach, and a wonderful final evening together in Vrsno hearing Stephan and Thea’s story.  For me, there were many “moments” and conversations that became highlights.  As one friend said, “I want to integrate these things into my life in Budapest and not stay the same.”

At the top of Krn Mountain

Launching Peaches 700 Meters Below

The Fish Gutting Team

Ready to Raft

The Leap

“My journey of faith must be personal in the sense that I struggle intellectually with issues that cut close to the heart of my identity.  As a member of the human race, a citizen of a broken world, and a follower of Jesus Christ, I can not hang up my commitments, desires, rebellions, resignations, and uncertainties like a coat on a coat rack before entering my pursuit of answers, to be taken up and put on when the work of the day is over.  How can I abstract from my commitments, desires, rebellions, resignations, and uncertainties?  I must think through them, with as much rigor as I can muster.”
- Miroslav Volf, Exclusion and Embrace

Could it be that our cultures of mistrust, cynicism, and idolatry of fame and power have caused a “crisis of heroism?”  “There are, in fact, few heroes.  We have no shortage of celebrities, but heroes are increasingly scarce.”  The phenomenon of the modern celebrity has widened the gap between fame and greatness.  In the past, heroism was connected with real achievement and profound displays of character, virtue, wisdom, athleticism, the arts, etc.  Today, we do not have many heroes, we have celebrities who are “well-known for being well-known.”  A big name rather than a big person….

Heroism is birthed from a transcendant call.  The Caller “challenges us directly to rise to our full stature as human beings.”  His call is to rise up by His grace and power and to become the people we are intended to be.  This call to inner greatness and heroic character is not a self-help scheme or a do-it-yourself project.  We are called by a “decisive divine word whose creative power is the deepest secret of the change.”
-thoughts from Os Guiness, The Call, chpt. 10.

Trust in the Lord with all your heart;
      do not depend on your own understanding.
Seek his will in all you do,
      and he will show you which path to take.

-Proverbs 3:5-6
(NLT)

“If man hasn’t discovered something that he will die for, he isn’t fit to live.”
-Martin Luther King, Jr.

Several years ago some dear friends encouraged Laura and I to have a weekly time with each other when we can really talk and share important things.  It’s been so helpful.  But in the past few months we haven’t been making it happen.  One of our resolutions is to re-establish this time together.  With kids, work, and activities, there is always one more thing we “need” to do.  Always one more thing to squeeze into the schedule.  But this is something we love and we feel we just can’t do without.

Our friends P & K also do this, and they have really encouraged us.  Tonight we sat in their kitchen talking about this, and we identified seven things which have made these “marriage meetings” valuable: 1) calendar coordination, 2) parenting plans, 3) express appreciation and affirmation, 4) positively share needs and difficult issues, 5) financial update, 6) share what we are learning, and 7) pray together.  I guess there are 3-4 of these that we make sure we always cover. 

“They say they will love, comfort, honor each other to the end of their days.  They say they will cherish each other and be faithful to each other always.  They say they will do these things not just when they feel like it, but even–for better or worse, for richer for poorer, in sickness and in health–when they don’t feel like it at all.  In other words, the vows they make at a marriage could hardly be more extravagant.”  -F. Buechner

“Without love, benevolence becomes egotism.” 

-Martin Luther King, Jr.

“Every man must decide whether he will walk in the light of creative altruism or the darkness of destructive selfishness.  This is the judgement.  Life’s most persistent and urgent question is, ‘What are you doing for others?’”  -Martin Luther King, Jr.

From what I understand the Hungarian and Croatian words for “enjoy” are quite similar in idea, that is, they both literally mean, “to be in life.”  Our boys, like all children, seem to have a special talent for being “in life.”  They laugh, they cry, they run, they fall, they jump, and they play.  They’ve been teaching me a couple things lately.

Break the Silence:  Nathan (3) loves to randomly tell his mother, “Mommy, you’re so beautiful!”  Everything stops for a moment, and we see that mom is really here with us…and she’s beautiful.  It occurs to me that we can use many words but easily be silent in things that matter most.  Breaking this silence ushers us back into life.

Willingness to Ask:  Jacob (4) loves to get on the floor and wrestle with me.  A time comes almost everyday when his eyes light up, and he asks, “Dad, can we wrestle now!?”  I love it when he asks that question.  I love that he is willing to ask for my time, energy and attention.  There is vulnerability because the answer could be, “no,” but the chance to be “in life” with dad is worth the risk.

Just thinking about the act and habit of journaling today.  Journaling keeps me moving and growing.  Reflecting, praying and thinking with a pen in my hand helps me to make sense of life, to encounter truth with wisdom and the heart, and to pay attention to God’s voice.  I’m an intuitive, so I often end up journaling about concepts, big ideas, illustrations, future plans and projects.  And I really enjoy writing out verses from the Bible and my responses to them.

“Experience is not the best teacher, evaluated experience is the best teacher”. Howard Hendricks

There are at least five ways journaling helps me.

• It cultivates awareness, both with the reality around me and the reality in me. 
• This awareness can lead to honesty, which is at the heart of a transformed and vibrant life. 
• It offers, over time, a sense of narrative to life.  I can see where I came from, where I am, where I am going.  The key players and themes of the past begin to show themselves in the present and direct my plans for the future.  Without this life-story awareness, the pursuit of meaning seems empty.
• It is a tool we can use to dig for wisdom and insight, things that are discovered by the heart and woven to the soul only in the context of real life and through effort (see Hendricks quote above).
• It enables us to access and pass-on what we have discovered.

Happy New Year!  I hope you are leaping into 2008 with eager expectation.  For the new year I’d like to carve out three 45 minute slots per week for swimming and possibly swim the 5 Kilometer race across lake Balaton in the summer.  Never thought I would enjoy swimming for exercise, but it has really grown on me while living in the water polo capital of the world.   

I’m also adding a couple new components to my journaling this year.  Journaling has been so helpful for me over the years with the inward, outward, and upward journey.  I’m also really glad moleskin notebooks are back in business!!

Thirdly, I’d like to create more integration between this blog and our present communities, our work with Nexus, and our spiritual and family journey here in Budapest.  I’ve mapped out a plan for this, and I’m going to give it a try for a month and see if the plan needs adjusting. 

Fourthly, we of course still have some concrete goals for working hard on the Hungarian language. 

I’ve heard that 46% of us are still keeping our resolutions after six months.  That sounds conservative to me.  So here is a helpful acronym for goal planning from the project management world- S.M.A.R.T.:

• Specific - goals should be specific and clear as opposed to general.
• Measurable - goals need to be capable of being measured in some fashion.
• Adjustable - there needs to be a way to adjust your goals according to your rate of progress…if it is faster or slower than originally anticipated. 
• Realistic - goals can be set beyond you present ability but are attainable over the present length of time.  Research says that difficult goals usually lead to improved performance as long as those goals do not exceed your ability to attain them. 
• Time-based - there should be a clear time-frame (short-term, intermediate-term, long-term.)  There should be clear target dates set from the beginning.  

And you know, thinking of goals in positive terms instead of negative terms is always more effective.  And process goals are usually better than outcome goals (improving effort or performance vs. winning a competition).  And finally, most goals deserve a good strategy.

With our minds we plan our ways,
But God directs our steps.
-Proverbs 16:9